The Holy Road dww-2

by Michael Blake

"I got frightened. I don't know why. I wanted to be with you.”

  Ten Bears pulled her close and stroked her soothingly.

  "You're not going to die.”

  "Not if I'm with you. Can I stay with you?”

  Ten Bears smiled at the thought of her needing him. It made him feel good all over.

  “You stay with Ten Bears," he said. “Stay as long as you want. No one will bother us."

  The old man and the girl, so widely separated by age and experience, achieved the peace that had seemed so out of reach in the simple act of clutching one another on the banks of the unspoiled stream. Ten Bears released his own restlessness, and Hunting For Something felt her sudden bout of anxiety take flight.

  Chapter XV

  The line of riders, thirty-six well-armed men, had been on the trail for several days. Not one of them, not even their leader, knew exactly where they were. No one had ever hunted this deep in Comanche country before, and having come this far, they found their thirst for retribution growing stronger with every mile that fell behind them. All were united in a single, common desire — to make the earth run red with the blood of those that had retarded the taming of the frontier for decades. They had answered the call of their kinsmen, the confederation of merchants and ranchers and farmers who lived in a long string of settlements along the eastern edge of the Comanche barrier.

  Each man in the band of rangers had lived wildly imperfect lives, and even a cursory review of their backgrounds would have led one to the conclusion that they were an unsavory group. Some had operated outside the law when it was convenient, some were shackled with impoverished intellects, some were ruled by homicidal instinct, and some, like their leader, a gaunt, black-bearded man who occasionally preached damnation in stark, airless structures when the Sabbath came around, were guided by visions of mass adulation.

  But who they were, where they came from, and how they lived did not describe them as clearly as what had brought them together. Each had stepped forward when the civilization that spawned them offered a free and clear license to kill.

  In idleness the thirty-six men might easily have been at the throats of each other. The seemingly limitless stock of liquor most of them had swilled from the outset of their journey would have spurred offhand insults or tangled misunderstandings, setting the murderous natures of some free to rampage. But the simple purpose of their mission kept them focused on the potential prey awaiting them farther out on the prairie. Though the majority passed each day in an alcoholic haze, there was no quarreling and no violence in their ranks.

  On the trail they stayed attuned to every variation in the country they passed over, ever-watchful for a glimpse of their quarry and the chance to chase and kill it.

  When they made camp for the night they were careful to throw out a perimeter, keep their cookfires small, and speak in low tones, no matter how often they tugged at the ever-present bottles. Even their conversations, bound to be rancorous and abrasive in the more civilized setting of an established drinking place, were free of conflict. The tales they shared as they ate their dinners and smoked their pipes and kept their weapons clean followed, with few exceptions the wealth of each man's experience on the subject of gore.

  Stories of men staggering about with entrails in their hands, shattered bone jutting from sheaths of skin, cleaved heads that afforded close-up views of the fissured brains inside, blood spurting in jets from severed arteries, limbs dangling by the slender thread of tendons, exploding faces, holes as big as melons, whimpering pleas for mercy — any anecdote remotely related to the carnage they loved to inflict was discussed with boundless relish and good humor.

  The singular pursuit of slaughter in every imaginable form was at the forefront of every ranger's mind, and its careful cultivation, over days of searching, culminated in the discovery of a good-sized village.

  One of the flankers had glimpsed the tops of the lodges as he passed a thick stand of elm situated not more than half a mile from the village. He watched for a few seconds, long enough to see that the target was located on flat terrain at the confluence of two streams. Then he galloped back to the main group, certain that he had not been detected.

  The gaunt leader, addressed always as "Captain," though he had never served in a formal military body, quickly brought his men to the elm grove and, sighting through a field glass, ascertained that the village was totally unaware of their presence. Ponies were scattered in front of the Indian town but there was no massed herd. In the minutes the captain scanned his objective he saw no more than half a dozen human forms outside the tents, and it was obvious that none of them suspected the wrath about to befall them.

  Twelve men were selected to circle wide of the village and position themselves behind it, there to kill as many of the escaping enemy as possible. They were given thirty minutes to get in place, before the main force of rangers would assault the village head-on.

  "You rangers who wish to fortify yourselves do so now," the captain intoned solemnly, and a score of men hastily brought their bottles to their lips.

  “Don't waste rounds on them animals out yonder," the captain cautioned. "We'll take 'em home afterward. Let's get the people first. Now," he grunted, digging through one of his saddlebags, "I've got a shiny new Colt I'm offering." He held the pistol up with both hands, waving it back and forth in front of the eyes of his followers as though it were solid gold. “This goes to the first man who kills and scalps one of them heathen scum." Then he added with a wink, "Babies without hair don't count.”

  The roar of laughter such high wit would normally have elicited was stifled by the rangers, hands, many of which flew coquettishly to their mouths lest the guffaws carry in the pleasant breeze blowing toward the treasured target.

  "You men go ahead now," the captain ordered and the twelve selected to cut off escape filed out of the grove. When the squeak of saddle leather and the footfalls of the horses had faded to nothing the gaunt leader straightened in the saddle and cleared his throat.

  "Boys, I'm a man for prayer. I could quote scripture to you right now for I'm tempted. What we're about to do's got it bubblin' up in me. But I think all I got to say is let's check our weapons over one more time. One more time won't hurt us now and I'd hate to see anybody miss out on the fun 'cause his weapon wasn't right."

  The rangers jumped down from their horses. They tested their cinches, unloaded and reloaded their firearms, and filled the silence of the grove they stood in with the sound of knife blades passing rhythmically to and fro on their whetstones, all the while inwardly damning the slowness of time.

  Chapter XVI

  The first person to see them was a twelve-year-old girl named Red Dress, the younger sister of Hunting For Something. She was sitting outside her parents' dwelling, playing house with a miniature lodge and dolls when a random glance at the country in front of camp told her something was wrong. A long line of dust was rolling toward the village.

  As she stood up Red Dress realized that the rolling cloud was being made by a band of riders hurtling toward her. She began screaming but her cries were as futile as the squeak of a mouse in the split second before talons lift it into space. The rush of pounding hooves and the hair-raising yells of the riders were already resounding through the helpless village.

  Frozen with fear, Red Dress sank to the ground, drove her face into the earth, and covered both ears. Moments later, in an explosion of gunfire, a bullet slammed into the back of her head, ending the girl's life.

  At the time Red Dress was shot, the camp was already swarming with terrified residents, fleeing in,all directions at once. People fell everywhere as the invaders emptied their pistols and rifles at anything that moved, and the whole village might have died in the first horrendous volley were it not for the voracity of the rangers, many of whom succumbed to temptation, scalping their kills and plundering Indian homes on the spot.

  Some jumped off their horses and shot those still huddled in their lodges while others became embroiled
in disputes over who had fired a fatal round. At the height of the attack the gaunt leader found himself besieged by several rangers, each clamoring to claim the shiny new Colt by virtue of the blood-drenched hanks of hair they were waving in his face.

  Horned Antelope had managed to survive the first wave of firing. As he raced for the rear of the village he spotted two warriors, Shield and Milky Way, cutting the throats of horses in a desperate attempt to make a barrier from which they could drive up the price on their lives, allowing the women and children and old men a few extra seconds to escape.

  A bullet tore through Horned Antelope's shoulder as he dove behind the downed horses, and on recovering his senses he discovered that both his friends were dead. The last thing he experienced in earthly existence was a queer thudding all over his body as the fusillade of bullets tore through his flesh.

  At the first sound of guns, Stands With A Fist had snatched up Stays Quiet and bolted outside, lunging for the picket line that anchored the pony Dances With Wolves had left for her. She threw Stays Quiet onto the horse's withers, jumped up behind, and kicked for the prairie opening in front of her.

  But she hadn't covered a hundred yards when the twelve rangers charged with blunting the escape suddenly loomed into view and opened fire. The pony shifted direction at full speed, leaping away from the white puffs of smoke, and Stands With A Fist, somehow managing to keep herself and her daughter on his back, let him go, trusting the panicked animal to carry them clear.

  Unhit, they might yet have reached safety had they not been spotted by a trio of rangers who had reluctantly paused in their labors to perform the necessary but bothersome act of reloading their weapons. Seeing the game afoot, they spontaneously laid whips to their horses' haunches and gave chase.

  When Stands With A Fist saw her pursuers, she asked for all the speed her pony could give and flattened herself over Stays Quiet. She didn't want to look back but the fiendish hollering of the men coming behind at last caused her to turn her head.

  At the same moment the ground in front of her fell away in the form of a natural ditch, no more than a few feet wide, cutting across the prairie. Startled by its appearance, the pony hesitated a split second before taking flight and, landing slightly off balance on the other side, catapulted his riders awkwardly into space.

  She held on to Stays Quiet as they hit the ground, and, clutching her to her breast, Stands With A Fist began to run, expecting at any moment to be shot down. Instead, she found herself suddenly encircled by grinning, hair-mouthed white men jabbering at each other in the language she had long forgotten. This flurry of talk between the rangers, a good-natured joust concerning who most deserved to take her scalp, saved the lives of Stands With A Fist and her daughter.

  The gaunt leader, having first given the coup de grace to another fleeing Indian nearby, suddenly noticed three of his men circling a standing enemy and rode over to investigate. Everyone turned their heads as he came up and the sun swept across Stands With A Fist's head. The cherry hue of her hair flashed in the captain's eyes.

  “Hold up, men," he commanded.

  The gaunt leader stepped off his horse and stared quizzically at Stands With A Fist. As he stepped warily up, his revolver poised to fire, Stands With A Fist closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on images of her husband and children at the moment of death.

  The next thing she felt, however, was the lifting of a lock of her hair, and when she opened her eyes she was staring into the sunken gray orbs of the captain. He was rubbing her hair between his fingers as if testing the quality of fabric.

  He holstered his gun, took one of her arms in both hands, and slowly pushed up the sleeve of her dress. Gazing into her eyes as if to hold them quiet, he spat onto his fingers. He rubbed the spittle on her arm and, like a detective following a quick succession of clues, pulled her bodice down and stared at the flesh above her breast.

  "This here's a white woman."

  Awestruck, he stepped back and looked her up and down, his mind swelling with heroic scenarios featuring himself.

  "I think this might be Christine Gunther."

  All the men had dismounted now. They stood in dumb silence behind their captain.

  Stands With A Fist blinked.

  "Are you Christine Gunther?"

  She had not heard the name for more than eleven years, not since the time Dances With Wolves had first come among them, not since Kicking Bird had implored her to remember the tongue of her birth, not since she had lain semi-delirious in a bed of rushes next to a fast-running stream and remembered her mother call out the name that belonged to her.

  It was not in answer to the hair-mouthed man's question that she spoke. In her disoriented state she was merely echoing a long-buried memory when she parted her lips and rolled her tongue and let the word come out of her mouth.

  "Christine."

  "God Almighty, it is her!" the captain gasped.

  He lifted his hat and held it lightly against his chest.

  "The Maker is with us today, men."

  Struck by the piety of the moment, the three rangers who had lately vied to see which of them would rejoice in the taking of her life and the skinning of her cherry-colored head doffed their hats and held them meekly to their chests.

  Stands With A Fist stared at them uncomprehendingly, and a ghastly feeling swept over her, the first realization that what was to come might be worse than the death she had thought certain minutes before. Her breath grew faster, her shoulders began to heave, and a torrent of tears, accompanied by piteous sobs, rained onto the ground at her feet.

  When they gently tugged at Stays Quiet she screamed and flailed, it was only after she realized she would be given back to her as soon she mounted that she relaxed her grip.

  As the gentle hands of her would-be killers, stained with the blood of friends, lifted her onto a white man's saddle she became inconsolable, abandoning herself so completely to grief that rangers had to ride either side to steady her.

  To a man they regarded her as one of their own, and the profound grief that had overwhelmed her was taken by them as a temporary insanity — an understandable trauma at finally being delivered from the clutches of her Comanche captors. It occurred to no one that leading her back to the slaughterhouse that was once her village would be upsetting.

  There she was made to wait, a hand covering the eyes of her daughter, as they piled the bodies and belongings of the women and children and men she had known so well into an unceremonious pile. Red Dress and Magpie Woman, the wives and children of Iron Jacket and Left Hand and Hears The Sunrise, Lone Young Man, Feathered Lance, and scores of others were dragged across the ground before her eyes, unrecognizable except for a dress she knew or a telltale scar or an unusual piece of jewelry.

  Women she had danced and sung with or aided in difficult births or comforted in times of loss. Children whom she had loved as her own. Men who had shared equal measures of danger and joy with her husband. All were paraded before her as meat, faces reduced to mush, intestines curling like rope in the dirt, legs and arms and torsos hacked open.

  When the piles had been set afire the rangers rode east, taking their legendary prize with them. Stands With A Fist tried valiantly to think one thought over and over to make her heart strong: that Dances With Wolves and Snake In Hands and Always Walking still lived. But invariably that thought would lead to the inescapable conclusion that she would never see them again.

  She imagined that she would never stop crying and, as the sun set behind her that evening, she felt the whole of herself going gradually numb. The nightmare she had feared so intensely through all her life as a Comanche was nothing compared to the reality of what had happened.

  The woman called Stands With A Fist had been rubbed out as surely as those who had gone up in smoke. But as she cradled Stays Quiet through the long and sleepless first night of what the gaunt leader called her liberation, she envied the fate of those who lay dead in the village.

  Before the sun was u
p the next morning they had taken the trail, making haste for the safety of white settlements in the east. She thought constantly of grabbing one of the ranger's guns and pressing the barrel against her head or of lifting a knife from its scabbard and drawing it swiftly across her throat, but the little girl sitting in front of her made such action impossible.

  Every step the big American horse she was riding took seemed to drive her deeper into the bottomless depths of a misery that could only be tolerated through the preservation of hope. But she was unable to construct even the flimsiest hope, and as the country became more and more unfamiliar, she found herself facing a future of unrelieved despair she was powerless to oppose.

  Chapter XVII

  From his vantage point, far out on an ocean of grass, the world was flat as the cloudless sky and the horizon was of a length and straightness only the Mystery could make.

  Smiles A Lot had seen the same grand picture every day of his life and the enormity of its simple components never failed to stir his feelings. Unaware of any presence but his own in such vastness made him small and large at the same time, a combination that infused his spirit with an incomprehensible blend of fear and fearlessness.

  But on this day as he sat on his pony, gazing across the infinity that led to home, there was something amiss, something tiny but distinct that disturbed the picture before him. curling almost imperceptibly at the limit of his sight was a thin, black column of smoke. Pushed by the breeze it angled to one side as it rose like a wisp on the horizon.

  The smoke was so out of place that he studied it for several minutes. Smiles A Lot doubted that the grass was on fire. The weather had been too still to start something like that, and even if it had, a wildfire would have spread out across a wide swath of country. This smoke was rising into the sky from a single spot, and for reasons he could not decipher, it gave Smiles A Lot a bad feeling. Though the black funnel was several hours' ride away it lay in the general direction of the village and he pressed on, hoping that his feeling was wrong. His ponies were fresh and he jumped from one to the other as he rode, certain that if he forced the pace he could reach the village before twilight.